US President Donald Trump speaks to journalists in the Oval Office on January 20, 2025. (Jim WATSON / POOL / AFP)

(JTA) — In one of his first actions as president, Donald Trump canceled sanctions targeting dozens of far-right Israeli individuals and settler organizations accused by the Biden administration of violent extremism against Palestinians.

The rescinding of the sanctions appeared on a long list of executive orders signed by Trump immediately after his inauguration on Monday, many of which focused on undoing policies enacted by his predecessor in the White House.

The move delivers a victory to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which regarded the sanctions enacted by Biden last year as an inappropriate intervention into the internal affairs of an allied country. Israeli officials had repeatedly asked the incoming president to lift them when he entered office.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is associated with the settler movement, thanked Trump in a post on social media.

“These sanctions were a severe and blatant foreign intervention in Israel’s internal affairs and an unjustified violation of democratic principles and the mutual respect that should guide relations between friendly nations,” Smotrich wrote.

Other prominent figures on the Israeli right also praised Trump for the move, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, who recently resigned from Netanyahu’s coalition to protest the deal Netanyahu signed with Hamas to release Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister and erstwhile Netanyahu ally.

Enacted by a Biden administration that was supportive of Israel’s war on Hamas but frustrated with Israeli policy in the West Bank, the sanctions were meant to pressure the Israeli government to take action against surging settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians.

Trump’s lifting of the sanctions comes amid raids by multiple days of settler raids on a West Bank Palestinian village of al-Funduq and as Israel declares an “extensive” military operation against Palestinian militants in the city of Jenin. The raids themselves follow the decision by Israeli’s defense minister, Israel Katz, to release all settlers who had been detained over their activity in the West Bank, a decision that he tied to the ceasefire deal and said was meant to support settlement activity.

“It is better for the families of Jewish settlers to be happy than the families of freed terrorists,” Katz said.

Trump’s day-one executive orders include another move signaling a shift in U.S. policy on Israel. He canceled a Biden order blocking sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes during the fighting in Gaza. Trump also reportedly plans to revoke the pause imposed by the Biden administration on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount